It may not have been the “House that Jack Built,” but it was the house where Aretha Franklin would spend part of her youth.
Though the LaSalle Gardens neighborhood began to be developed as early as 1908, this house would not be built until 1922. This colonial home with Tudor flourishes was designed by the firm Mildner & Eisen for Julius and Minnie Porath. With six bedrooms and five bathrooms, it was a stately estate for the Poraths. Julius and Minnie Porath moved into the house in January 1923. Minnie Forath died in March 23, 1956, and was still living in the home at the time. But it was not the Poraths that cemented this 6,000-square-foot house in the minds of Detroiters.
The home at 7415 LaSalle Blvd. was, for decades, the home of the Rev. Clarence LaVaughn “C.L.” Franklin, a revered civil-rights leader, friend of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and father of Detroit’s own soul sisters, Aretha, Carolyn and Erma Franklin. It would also be the house where the preacher would suffer an attack that would eventually take his life.
The Rev. Franklin was a Baptist preacher, who was born Jan. 22, 1915, to sharecroppers in Sunflower County, Miss. He felt called to the pulpit when he was 16 years old, and started preaching in rural areas of the Magnolia State. He would later attend seminary in Greenville, Miss., and then to LeMoyne College in Memphis, Tenn. He preached across the South, then in Buffalo, N.Y., before moving to Detroit in June 1946.
That’s when the preacher known as the man with a “Million-Dollar Voice,” Franklin became the fifth pastor at New Bethel Baptist Church, which had been founded in 1932. He would serve as its primary pastor for more than 30 years, until 1979. He used music to preach the gospel and eventually formed his own gospel music group, C.L. Franklin’s Gospel Caravan, which traveled around the country and included his three daughters. While Aretha Franklin primarily sang lead, her sisters often accompanied her in gospel singing, and when Aretha went on to become a major solo artist, her sisters provided backing vocals on classics such as “Respect,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Erma Franklin, the eldest of the three sisters, was a performer in her own right, having recorded the first and original version of “Piece of My Heart,” which would later go on to become a top 20 hit for Janis Joplin.
Rev. Franklin was also a pillar in the fight for civil rights. In 1957, he assisted in the formation of the Trade Union Leadership Council (TULC), a group of Black United Auto Workers who fought against workplace discrimination. He helped plan the 1963 Walk to Freedom in Detroit, which at the time was the largest civil rights gathering in the United States, seeing nearly 250,000 people participating in the demonstration of support for protests in the South. He advised Dr. King on Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) initiatives, and was instrumental in organizing Black churches and unions to support the civil rights movement.
Rev. Franklin moved his family into this house in 1959, not long after he had moved New Bethel Baptist Church from 4210 Hastings St. in the city’s Black Bottom neighborhood to 8430 Linwood St. because the City of Detroit was razing the neighborhood in the name of “urban renewal.” The new church had originally been built as the Oriole Theatre.
Tragically, on June 10, 1979, Rev. Franklin was shot at this home during a robbery and rushed to Henry Ford Hospital nearby. He never regained consciousness, and passed away five years later, on July 2, 1984.
In 2011, the singer returned to visit the house for an interview with “CBS This Morning” and recalled her memories there. “It was definitely a show place,” she said, adding that it was the most beautiful home that I'd ever seen” and a far cry from her birthplace in Memphis, Tenn.
She told CBS how gospel superstars like Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward would drop in on the family at the house.
In 2013, the house was listed for sale as a bank-owned property and sold “as is” for a mere $46,874. Ten years later, the house hit the market again, this time being listed for $379,900. Though improvements had been made, the listing real estate agent told the Detroit Free Press for a May 8, 2023, article that “the house needs a lot of work. Some rooms have been completed. The owners were going room by room,” Brittany Randall of Clyde Realty LLC in Southfield, told the paper.
Today, its new owners have the house looking fixed up and fit for royalty such as the Queen of Soul.